Recovery
by Clouded Horizon
Summary: For a while afterwards, recovery feels a bit like dying inside. Oneshot, Max-centric. R&R.


My first MR fic, inspired by the poem quoted below. Set maybe six, seven years post-canon. Hope you like it – leave a review if you do, and even if you don't. :)

Recovery

Over the page the pen

runs faster than wind's white steps over grass.

For a while health feels like pain. Then panic

running the fields, the grass, the racing leaves

ahead of light...

From 'October' by Gillian Clarke

* * *

For a while afterwards, recovery feels a bit like dying inside.

* * *

"_Just breathe, Max," I hear someone say in a worried voice, as I screw up my eyes and clench my fists with the pain. "Keep breathing deeply." I nod, sucking air in through my gritted teeth. I can't get my head around it, but it's happening. It's time._

* * *

Despite everything, it takes everything I have to get up in the morning. It's so hard – the repeated shock, day after day. It only takes a second after waking from warm, comforting sleep to remember, and from then on every moment of the day is snatched and hurried in an exhausted frenzy to reach sundown and forgetting. Some nights I'm betrayed by my own mind, and every excruciating facet of my pain is brought into razor focus by the lens of nightmare. I scream and scream, and cry.

* * *

_I thought I'd be prepared for this when the time came around, but I'm not. A confusing mix of emotions is running through me, mixed in with the waves of pain. I'm scared. _

* * *

I thought I knew about pain; after all, I grew up in hell on earth. I used to think 'heartbreak' was just a metaphor, but now I understand it's horribly accurate. I say the words out loud, feel them creep over my lips in a shaking, croaking parody of my voice. My heart is broken.

_My heart is broken_.

* * *

_The complications start almost immediately, and between contractions someone tells me they'll have to perform a c-section. I agree almost hysterically, terrified at how easily I'm falling apart, and soon the cold numbness is seeping through me and all I can do is wait, hoping against hope. I see him pushed to the edge of the circle of experts, his expression helpless. _

_I don't know how long it is, but then a doctor's lifting a tiny, blood-covered figure from my anaesthetised midsection and it's her, my daughter, and I've never felt this way before. Time seems to slow down; I glimpse her face, and her body looks wrong somehow, but it doesn't matter. Suddenly I'm happy, incredulously happy, happier than I knew it was possible to be. _

_And then the doctor holding her reacts to something and swings away. The others cluster around him so I can't see what's going on. I shout feebly, my voice weak, and try to sit up – but it's impossible. He comes to my side and grips my hand; I can feel him shaking. _

_Gradually, though, the frenzied activity slows, and there's a fist around my heart that's tightening bit by bit. It clutches like a vice when a woman turns in our direction, her face distorted by what might be guilt. I cry out. _

* * *

I escape through the brilliance of sky and sunlight as soon as I am strong enough, wheeling and soaring, trying to outfly grief, discovering it's impossible – pain can fly just as fast as I can, matching me wingstroke for wingstroke.

* * *

_Later, the three of us are alone. I can still barely move, so he brings her tiny, pitiful body over to me so that I can touch her for the first and last time. Tears are shuddering down his twisted, anguished face; I'm dry-eyed, but when I stroke her cold cheek the dam bursts, heaving sobs wrench through my whole body, and I break._

* * *

I don't think I'll ever be anything but empty again. It feels that way for a long time.

* * *

Gradually, though, memory dims and the savage ache inside me ebbs a little, though I still feel brittle, delicate, as if the slightest jolt could shatter me into shards. He and I talk again, can bear to touch each other. I'm not sure if we'll ever get over this.

I hope we can.

* * *

Spring turns to summer, and then to autumn; the wind is sharp and cold, and maybe I'm coming back to myself, recovering. I won't ever be the same as I was before, but I think that's all right. One cool, blustery day in October, standing barefoot in a little cove with the freezing wash of the surf numbing my toes, I come to a crossroads; I think of my daughter, and for the first time I don't feel the hot sting behind my eyes, only a quiet sadness. It's the same sadness I've been seeing in his expression for weeks – I've a feeling he arrived at this point a long time before I did, and no wonder. I was so good, when we were younger, at holding it all together for the flock by lying and pretending and sometimes even making myself believe it, that when something so inescapable as this happened I couldn't deal with it. He was always more honest, and maybe that helped him.

I know I've not healed yet, and I probably never will completely. Let's face it, a part of me doesn't _want_ to. Without really knowing why, I wade further out into the waves, till they're almost up to my waist; the bite of the icy water is soothing, somehow. It feels significant, like some kind of ritual – a cleansing, perhaps, or a release. I let the spray-laden breeze run over my face, and close my eyes.

It feels like a long time until I turn and stagger on numbed legs back to the shore. Then I leap, snap out my wings and rise on the sea winds, homeward.

* * *

He's waiting for me out in front of the house, leaning on the fence and gazing out over the cliffs. I land behind him and he turns to meet me, holding out a hand, which I take.

"Why are your clothes all wet?" he asks suspiciously. I don't answer, but hold his warm hand against my cheek. Then I turn to face him, gathering up my courage, and our eyes meet, his gaze questioning.

"I think… I think we'll be all right, soon," I say honestly.

A flash of deep emotion crosses his face, and suddenly he's taken my face in both hands and he's kissing me for what feels like the first time. I start to cry as his lips press gently against mine, and I can feel the tear-damp on his cheeks. When we've cried ourselves out – for what feels like the last time – I lean against him, and for a while we stand there without speaking.

The sky over the ocean is a clear, almost painful blue; the air tastes of autumn. The year's rolling on to its end. I begin to think I'll still be here in spring.

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: So, what did you think? Too long/too short? Was the structure confusing? Max is quite OOC here, but I think bereavement would probably do that. As to the subject matter – this fic was kind of a reaction to all the pregnant!Max fics where the baby (or bab_ies_, that seems to happen a lot) is born fine, no genetic problems whatsoever, and they all live happily ever after. Maybe it's just me, but that seems a tad unrealistic. (Not that some of those fics aren't quite well written and enjoyable, but you get my point.) Anyway, hopefully you liked it, and feedback would be lovely!


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